SMS VS NES

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Originally Posted by StarMist

A bit late now but I'd really like to see such a list from you, both sets of 50 if you don't mind.

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Happy to! I actually did this as a list of 90 a while back, as a response to some thread or other about the NES library. I did do the first 50 stream-of-consciousness, and then more gradually added another 40, but the order's all mixed up now. Imports and fan translations were omitted, as were most examples of "it's-a-crap-game-but-I-like-it":

Adventure Island, Adventures of Captain Comic, Adventures of Lolo, Adventures of Lolo 2, Adventures of Rad Gravity, Air Fortress, Arkista's Ring, Bases Loaded, Batman, Battle of Olympus, Bionic Commando, Blaster Master, Castlevania, Castlevania II, Castlevania III, Clash at Demonhead, Cobra Triangle, Commando, Contra, Crystalis, Deja Vu, Destiny of an Emperor, Double Dragon, Double Dragon II, Dragon Warrior, Dragon Warrior II, Dragon Warrior III, Duck Hunt, Duck Tales, Earthbound, Faxanadu, Final Fantasy, Firehawk, Friday the 13th, Galaga, Golgo 13, Gradius, Guardian Legend, Guerrilla War, Heavy Barrel, Iron Tank, Jackal, Kickle Cubicle, Kid Icarus, Kid Niki, Kung Fu, Legacy of the Wizard, Legend of Zelda, Life Force, Little Nemo: Dream Master, Little Samson, Mega Man, Mega Man 2, Mega Man 3, Metal Gear, Metroid, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, Milon's Secret Castle, Monster Party, Ninja Gaiden, Ninja Gaiden II, Operation: Wolf, Pipe Dream, Puzznic, Rad Racer, RC Pro-Am, River City Ransom, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Rygar, Section Z, Shadow of the Ninja, Shadowgate, Skull & Crossbones, Solomon's Key, Solstice, Strider, Super C, Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, Tetris, TMNT, TMNT 2, Ultima IV, Ultimate Stuntman, Uninvited, Whomp 'Em, Xexyz, Yoshi's Cookie, Zanac

Nothing too surprising, I'd imagine, and I'm not sure that I stand by everything in this list (Friday the 13th probably falls under IACGBILI), but most of them I remember fondly and am pleased to resurrect. Even TMNT.

To bring it up to 100, let's add ten more, including some imports:

Amagon, Doki! Doki! Yuuenchi, Earthbound "Zero", Family Tennis, Marble Madness, Moai Kun, Moon Crystal, Musashi no Bouken, Ufouria, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

And I can think of piles more, just in the A section: Where is Adventures of Tom Sawyer? What is become of Abadox? Where is Dino Riki?

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Originally Posted by goldenband

{{ LIST }}

Nothing too surprising, I'd imagine, and I'm not sure that I stand by everything in this list (Friday the 13th probably falls under IACGBILI), but most of them I remember fondly and am pleased to resurrect. Even TMNT.

And I can think of piles more, just in the A section: Where is Adventures of Tom Sawyer? What is become of Abadox? Where is Dino Riki?

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Thanks!
There are some glitchers to be sure, but you're clearly less dowf a gamer than me so I'm not surprised. TMNT is pretty cool till the last 3/20. Then it pounds me beyond all notion of gaming.
They'll be in my list.

goldenband TMNT III?

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Originally Posted by cowboyscowboys

goldenband TMNT III?

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An odd omission that's for sure.

I have some vague memory of getting frustrated by TMNT III and giving up on it, but that was a looooong time ago. I'm due to revisit it.

@StarMist: Agreed about TMNT. The first four levels are straightforward, the fifth is challenging but doable, and the sixth is a torrent of death and destruction. Everyone always says the swimming level is hard, and the ending is makeable with 99 scrolls per turtle; I find the opposite to be true, in both cases.

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Originally Posted by goldenband

I have some vague memory of getting frustrated by TMNT III and giving up on it, but that was a looooong time ago. I'm due to revisit it.

@StarMist: Agreed about TMNT. The first four levels are straightforward, the fifth is challenging but doable, and the sixth is a torrent of death and destruction. Everyone always says the swimming level is hard, and the ending is makeable with 99 scrolls per turtle; I find the opposite to be true, in both cases.

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...Yeah, what are those scrolls? I'm not sure I had one when I last played it. Damn it has great music though.

TMNT III will also be absent from my list except perhaps with a disclaimer (I'm getting mired in detail) since I find the sprites cheesy---akin to what I believe was a revision of the Arcade/II. Was that in the 4P 'deluxe' cabinet where they looked so silly? My play was predominantly on the 2P cab.

Also: hope you've the time to join our next shmupping contest. The game's undecided yet but we're allowing 10 days now. If so good luck.

TMNT is a great game, I like it even better that beat 'em up TMNT games.

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Originally Posted by Kamahl

I don't think it's better... IT IS BETTER. There's no "I think" when it comes to hardware capabilities, it either can or it can't, and the NES can't without extra hardware (talking about linescrolling here, like in darius).
Well... maybe with some crazily timed code, but that would be a complete PAIN.

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Does it require CPU intervention (like the PCE's scanline interrupts) or is it handled by the VDP itself (more like the MD)?

If the VDP can signal CPU interrupts for linescroll effects, that would also imply that palette swap effects should be relatively simple to do on the SMS too. (unlike the NES, where you'd need to do software timed code or -realistically- added hardware on cart)

It has a scanline counter and interrupts.

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Originally Posted by Kamahl

It has a scanline counter and interrupts.

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Huh . . . so that should also make palette-swap effects practical. I wonder why SMS games don't show that. (maybe due to the limited palette making such effects less useful -especially in terms of limited shades available . . . unlike the NES ironically ;))

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

Huh . . . so that should also make palette-swap effects practical. I wonder why SMS games don't show that. (maybe due to the limited palette making such effects less useful -especially in terms of limited shades available . . . unlike the NES ironically ;))

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What type of palette swap effects do you mean? Many SMS games have effects like animation that is done with color cycling.

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Originally Posted by Black_Tiger

What type of palette swap effects do you mean? Many SMS games have effects like animation that is done with color cycling.

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He means midframe palette updates. Water effects, sky gradientes, etc.., but also used to actually get more colors instead of simply being a neat effect. The Z80 is far too slow to update a lot of colors though, and you'll end up getting snow like on the MD.

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

maybe due to the limited palette making such effects less useful -especially in terms of limited shades available . . . unlike the NES ironically ;))

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Do you mean using colour emphasis? or just the two master pallettes compared to each other?

We all know the NES handles pitch black pretty well with its 10 shades of black, but what other colours does it naturally have more shades for than SMS? doing a half-assed comparison with my untrained eye (without emphasis tricks) the SMS looks like it has more shades of blue, more shades of green, more shades of mauve, and more shades of yellow, NES has more shades of brown, black (all shades look identical), and maybe red (SMS seems to have a lot on pink and purple colours instead)

Also, according to something I've read on Nesdev forums (could be a rumour) not all versions of the PPU had the two shades of grey which usually appear on the far right of the pallete, so Nintendo advised developers not to use them (and apparently very few licensed games actually do use them)

So Koolkitty, about the alt palettes. Got any examples of these being used in commercial games? Any examples of how they could be exploited to achieve a particular effect?

Unless you live in EU(because the NES library was pretty bad in EU when compared to US, and Japan), there really is no contest, the NES is way too godly(there are so many awesome games on the NES, It's scary).

Lets see, here's a small list just off the top of my head: SMB, SMB 2, SMB 3, MM 2(1, and 3 were good too, but MM 2 is amazing), DW 1, DW 2, DW 3, DW 4(while the Japanese version of DW 4 is way better, the US version is still very good), Blaster Master, Contra, Romanance of the Three Kingdoms, Destiny of an Emperor, Crystalis, Guardian Legend, Zelda, Link, Star Tropics, Star Tropics 2, Shadowgate, Shadow of the Ninja, Willow(a awesome game based on the move), Batman(one of the only good Batman games ever made), Wizardry 1, Wizardry 2, Swords and Serpents, Tombs & Treasure, Gradius, Lolo 1, Lolo 2, Lolo 3, Marble Madness, Snake Rattle and Roll, Faxanady, Faria, Wizards & Warriors 1, Wizards & Warrior 2, Wizards & Warriors 3, Duck Tales 1, Duck Tales 2, King's Quest 5, Pinbot, Tetris, Punch Out, Final Fantasy, TMNT, Battle of Olympus, Paper Boy, Pipe Dream, Loopz, Section Z, Golgo 13, Ninja Gaiden 1, Ninja Gaiden 2, Ninja Gaiden 3, Iron Tank, GI Joe 1, GI Joe 2, Solar Jet Man, RBI Baseball 2, exc, exc, exc.

Needless to say, the NES has a metric ton of quality games.